My impression is that people who are used to sleep deprivation (new parents, military, shift workers) are not as impaired by it as people encountering the same level of deprivation for the first time- even when the former group is running on a prolonged sleep deficit, and the latter is going into sleep deprivation fully rested. You never stop being impaired, but past deprivation lets you cope with it better. This pattern matches to me with e.g. fasting will always make you dumb eventually, but people with fasting experience can go much longer before getting dumb.
I agree that this sort of adaptation probably occurs, but I don’t see how this makes sleep deprivation a lot more like those other things you mentioned than to stubbing your toe. Guzey also claimed that “[o]ccasional acute sleep deprivation is good for health,” not only that it promotes more efficient sleep, and for each of your examples of things that are more like sleep deprivation than toe-stubbing is (fasting, exercise, and infections in some cases) the claim does not seem to be that those things impair you but just less so with time.
(For that matter, I would guess that there is also some adaptation to stubbing your toe. It shouldn’t ever stop hurting or lightly and temporarily damaging you, but if you do it a lot you’ll probably find a way to cope with it better, and go back to doing work five minutes later rather than ten.)
My impression is that people who are used to sleep deprivation (new parents, military, shift workers) are not as impaired by it as people encountering the same level of deprivation for the first time- even when the former group is running on a prolonged sleep deficit, and the latter is going into sleep deprivation fully rested. You never stop being impaired, but past deprivation lets you cope with it better. This pattern matches to me with e.g. fasting will always make you dumb eventually, but people with fasting experience can go much longer before getting dumb.
I agree that this sort of adaptation probably occurs, but I don’t see how this makes sleep deprivation a lot more like those other things you mentioned than to stubbing your toe. Guzey also claimed that “[o]ccasional acute sleep deprivation is good for health,” not only that it promotes more efficient sleep, and for each of your examples of things that are more like sleep deprivation than toe-stubbing is (fasting, exercise, and infections in some cases) the claim does not seem to be that those things impair you but just less so with time.
(For that matter, I would guess that there is also some adaptation to stubbing your toe. It shouldn’t ever stop hurting or lightly and temporarily damaging you, but if you do it a lot you’ll probably find a way to cope with it better, and go back to doing work five minutes later rather than ten.)
you’re right, it’s not quite analogous. I still low-confidence believe in the homeostasis disruption thing, but this isn’t evidence of that.